Five people have escaped from a cafe in central Sydney where an armed gunman had taken several people hostage Monday and forced two people to hold up a black flag bearing Islamic slogans written in Arabic in the store’s window.
Three men were seen running from a fire exit of the Lindt Chocolat Cafe approximately six hours after the hostage situation began at 9:45 a.m. local time (5:45 p.m. ET Sunday). Shortly afterward, two women, one after another, sprinted from the cafe and into the arms of heavily armed police. Both were wearing aprons with the Lindt chocolate logo, indicating they were cafe employees. One of the men who escaped also appeared to be an employee.
New South Wales Deputy Police Commissioner for Specialist Operations Catherine Burn said that police negotiators had made contact with the unidentified gunman, though it was not clear how the hostages escaped. Burn also said that fewer than 30 people were held inside the cafe, though she did not give a precise number.
Estimates of the number of people held in the cafe have varied wildly. Chris Kenny, an associate editor and columnist for The Australian newspaper, left the cafe moments before the gunman entered. He estimated that there were approximately a dozen customers when he was inside, and between three and four staff. However, Lindt Australia CEO Steve Loane said later that there were between 40 and 50 customers and employees inside the store.
Burn said that the first priority was the wellbeing of the people who escaped, after which police would question them to gain more information about the situation inside. She added that police believe that there is only one gunman and had no further information about a possible motive.
“We do not have any information that suggests that anybody is harmed at this stage,” she said.
St. Vincent’s hospital spokesman David Faktor said a male hostage was in a satisfactory condition in the hospital’s emergency department. He was the only one of the freed hostages to be taken to a hospital.
“He’s in a satisfactory condition, so he’s sitting up and that’s all we can give out. We can’t talk about the reason for his presentation,” Faktor said.
The standoff has closed off part of the central business district in Australia’s largest city. The cafe is located in Martin Place, a plaza in the heart of the city’s financial and shopping district that is packed with holiday shoppers this time of year.
Hundreds of police flooded into the area, streets were closed and offices evacuated. The public was told to stay away from the area, which is home to the state premier’s office, the Reserve Bank of Australia, and the headquarters of two of the nation’s largest banks. The state parliament house is a few blocks away, and the Sydney headquarters of the Seven television network is also nearby. The Sydney Opera House was also briefly evacuated after a report of a suspicious package, but has since re-opened.
The U.S. Consulate, located just south of the cafe, was also evacuated and a warning issued urging Americans in Sydney to “maintain a high level of vigilance and take appropriate steps to enhance your personal security.” A White House official told Fox News that President Obama had been briefed on the situation.
“We have not yet confirmed it is a terrorism-related event — we’re dealing with a hostage situation with an armed offender and we are dealing with it accordingly,” New South Wales Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione said early Monday afternoon. However, Scipione did say that police were operating “on a footing consistent with a terrorist act.”
Sky News Australia reported that one of the hostages had contacted a radio broadcaster twice during the siege. Ray Hadley said he had spoken to a “remarkably calm” male hostage and that the hostage taker had demanded the hostage speak live on the radio, a demand Hadley refused.
“I told the hostage it would not be in his best interest or my best interest to allow that to happen because I’m not a trained negotiator, I don’t have any expertise in this, there are people who will talk to both the hostages and the person holding the hostages and they will be knowing what to do,” Hadley told 2GB Radio.
Television footage shot through the cafe’s windows showed several people with their arms in the air and hands pressed against the glass, and two people holding up a black flag with the Shahada, or Islamic declaration of faith, written on it.
Zain Ali, the head of the Islamic Studies Research Unit at the University of Auckland, said the Shahada translates as “There is no deity of worship except God (Allah), and Muhammad is the messenger of God.” It is considered the first pillar of Islam’s five pillars of faith, and has been used by groups like Al Qaeda and Islamic State but wasn’t invented by them, Ali said.
“We don’t know whether this is politically motivated, although obviously there are some indications that it could be,” Prime Minister Tony Abbott told reporters in the nation’s capital, Canberra. “We have to appreciate that even in a society such as ours, there are people who would wish to do us harm.”
A police spokeswoman said no injuries had been reported from the incident. Heavily armed officers were lined up outside the cafe, and a man with a backpack inside the cafe could be seen walking back and forth in front of the glass doors.
“Police have been in attendance and have controlled the situation from very early this morning,” said Scipione, the police commissioner. “We are at this stage continuing to secure and make sure that we are doing all we can to bring this to a peaceful outcome.”
Abbott said the National Security Committee of Cabinet met to be briefed on the situation.
“The whole point of politically motivated violence is to scare people out of being themselves,” Abbott said. “Australia is a peaceful, open and generous society — nothing should ever change that. And that’s why I would urge all Australians today to go about their business as usual.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Watch this You Tube video report by Chris Kenny The Australian columnist describe his brush with the siege at the Lindt Cafe:
EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in the New English Review. The featured image is of Australian hostages in the Lindt Cafe holding Islamist Shahada flag against window. Source AP/Channel 7.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/Australian-Hostage-Taking-Shahada-flag-AP-Channel-7-e1418647706118.jpg360640Jerry Gordonhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngJerry Gordon2014-12-15 07:48:362014-12-15 08:03:46Latest on Islamist Hostage Taking in Sydney: Five Hostages Flee
LIMA, Peru – During a press conference today by the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT) at the United Nations Conference on Climate Change in Peru, climate change skeptic NASA Apollo astronaut and American hero Col. Walt Cunningham, along with CFACT Executive Director Craig Rucker and Director of Communications Marc Morano, were abruptly removed off the stage by UN officials to create a platform for a photo op for the newly arrived Secretary of State John Kerry.
CFACT staff learned that Secretary of State John Kerry needed to use the stage for a photo op with the U.S. climate negotiating team during their allotted press conference. Kerry was scheduled to do a talk in a different room, but needed the press room for Kerry’s photo op. Six minutes later, CFACT politely left as requested and then the room remained empty for at least another 35 minutes. Col Cunningham’s skeptical talk was interrupted without just cause.
“This is an outrage. We are one of the few skeptical voices of reason here at the conference. To interrupt our press conference and abruptly end our press conference smacks of a cheap form of censorship,” said Craig Rucker of CFACT. “This was particularly obnoxious as the room remained vacant for quite a while after we left.”
UN hosts climate skeptics at summit: Apollo Astronaut Slams UN for perpetrating the ‘one of the biggest frauds in the field of science’
Skeptics Descend on UN Climate Summit
Col. Walt Cunningham to UN: ‘CO2 is not a pollutant! Earth’s climate history indicates CO2 is not a major factor in climate change. The UN has twisted science in order to enrich itself and inflates its own importance.’
Climate Depot’s Morano: ‘The science behind the claims of man-made global warming continue to wackier and wackier.’
LIMA, Peru – The United Nations hosted a group of climate skeptics during the Lima global warming summit on Thursday December 11, 2014. Skeptics from Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT) and a NASA Apollo 7 Astronaut denounced the UN climate claims and the goals of the summit.
Apollo 7 Astronaut Walt Cunningham rejected the UN climate view and the entire basis for a climate treaty. Climate Depot’s Marc Morano congratulated the UN summit for finally getting a willing U.S. to sign onto its meaningless and dangerous climate treaties.
Cunningham added that he believes climate alarmism is the “one of the biggest frauds in the field of science.”
“There is no reason to be concerned about today’s temperature or temperature trend. Human produced CO2 plays a miniscule role in global temperatures and there is no reason to believe today’s CO2 and temperature levels are ideal,” he added.
“Humans cannot have any significant influence on the Earth’s temperature,” Cunningham explained.
Cunningham was one of the signatories of a letter signed by 50 former NASA astronauts and engineers.
Craig Rucker, Executive Director CFACT: “It is mind boggling that as the world rushes towards adopting a climate agreement, the alleged scientific ‘consensus’ behind global warming is being blown apart. With Antarctic sea ice at record high numbers, polar bears thriving and no global warming for 18 years 2 months, you would think there would be a need to pause and reconsider the evidence for a climate catastrophe.”
Climate Depot publisher Marc Morano, former senior staff of the U.S. Senate Environment & Public Works Committee, congratulated the UN for having a committed U.S. on board.
Morano: “I congratulate the UN for finally bringing a willing U.S. to the table to sign a new UN climate treaty. A lame duck President Obama and his Sec. of State, John Kerry, are desperately seeking a climate change legacy and will pretty much sign any paper that is put in front of them next year at the Paris UN meeting. You can feel the air of optimism permeating the conference here in Lima.
For first time since 1990s, the U.S. is absolutely committed to signing a treaty. The UN climate process is facing a U.S. willing and committed to sign a new agreement – at all costs and pretty much regardless of details.
Make no mistake, come hell or high water, the U.S. will be signing a UN agreement next year in Paris. It is virtually preordained.
The international community is very excited about President Obama’s agreement with China and his EPA climate regulations. In 2014, the U.S. has become a virtual golden child to the UN process.
Of course, whether the U.S. stays the course on climate depends on next U.S. elections in 2016.
It is possible that climate skeptics have won virtually every battle of the ‘climate war’ (Kyoto, cap-and-trade, carbon taxes, etc.) But we may lose the war. Once EPA regulations become codified into law, even a future Republican president may be hesitant to repeal for fear of being against the environment.
If Obama succeeds in getting new Paris UN deal ‘ratified’ under old 1992 treaty, it would be further solidification of the climate agenda in U.S.
Whether you like him or not, Obama is transforming America in potentially permanent ways. Climate regulations may become a fixture in America given Obama’s activism and the Republican Party’s general weakness on this issue.”
Morano on UN climate process: ‘This is a political pressure campaign. The UN climate process will do nothing for climate change and it is completely designed to enrich the UN. This is a self-interested UN trying to get more money and more power for itself. Nothing will be accomplished for the climate – this is all about empowering UN bureaucracy.’
Morano on China: ‘China has just become the world’s number one economic power. China is building on average one coal plant a week. While the U.S. is shutting our coal plants down and preventing future ones. It tells you a little bit about how vital energy is to economic growth. China has essentially pledged nothing.’
Morano on Climate Science: “The science behind the claims of man-made global warming continue to wackier and wackier.
If we believe this study, then if future temps continue to flatline or even cool, global warming activists can claim climate policy is responsible. Some of them are already doing this!
We have the climate establishment warning in ominous tones about how 2014 may be the ‘hottest year on record.’ Oh my! It sounds so chilling until you realize that they are claiming differences of quite literally hundredths of a degree Celsius between years based on surface temperature data. Hyping tiny unmeasurable temperature changes that are within the margin of error, is a fancy way of saying that the global warming ‘standstill’ or ‘pause’ continues!
‘The hiatus period of 18 years 2 months, or 218 months, is the farthest back one can go in the RSS (Remote Sensing Systems) satellite temperature record and still show a sub-zero trend.’
‘As a result of data and computational uncertainty, none of the surface compilations will 2014 be statistically different from 2010′
‘The three major groups calculating the average surface temperature of the earth (land and ocean combined) all are currently indicating that 2014 will likely nudge out 2010 (by a couple hundredths of a degree Celsius) to become the warmest year in each dataset (which begin in mid-to-late 1800s).’
‘The two satellite datasets ‘show that 2014 is nowhere near the warmest (in data which starts in 1979), trailing 1998 by several tenths of a degree Celsius. This difference is so great that it statistically clear that 2014 will not be a record year…The super El Niño of 1998 set a high temperature mark that will likely stand for many years to come, or at least until another huge El Niño occurs.’
‘If you want 2014 to be the “warmest year ever recorded” you can find data to back you up, and if you prefer it not be, well, you can find data to back up that position as well. In all cases, the former will make headlines.’
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/kerry-at-climate-change-summit-lema.jpg369599Marc Moranohttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngMarc Morano2014-12-14 12:52:252014-12-14 12:53:04Skeptics Cleared Off Stage: Apollo 7 Astronaut Rushed Off Stage At UN Climate Summit To Make Way For Kerry Photo Op
The problem is not just benighted cops, but over criminalization by Michael Munger:
An interesting split has been developing in the reactions to the Ferguson and the Staten Island grand jury decisions. When you look closely, this is exactly the division that has for so long defined the American left and right and has kept libertarians on the sidelines.
The left is outraged that the state is not doing exactly what the left expects from an idealized, unicorn state. When they said they wanted a system where everything was controlled by the state, for the common good, they genuinely believed that all that is necessary for good results is good intentions. Any failure must be a problem with implementation.
But the real state is made up of human beings. People are deeply flawed. The left wants to rely on abstract systems, then be perpetually astonished when things go really wrong. It’s not bad people that are the problem. “The thing, the thing itself” is the abuse, folks.
The right? Well, the right is just denying that there is a problem. The system is working. The grand jury has spoken. The only problem is the protesters, who are law-breakers.
The libertarian middle (look, when the political system is a muddle, we’re the middle!) accepts parts of both arguments. The system is, in fact, working exactly as designed, so the right is correct in that sense. But this is a really bad outcome, and it hurts poor people the most — so the left is correct, too.
You can’t have all those laws, a strong presumption in favor of the state’s truthfulness, and expect to protect the poor.
When under the pretext of fraternity, the legal code imposes mutual sacrifices on the citizens, human nature is not thereby abrogated. Everyone will then direct his efforts toward contributing little to, and taking much from, the common fund of sacrifices. Now, is it the most unfortunate who gains from this struggle? Certainly not, but rather the most influential and calculating.
The system is not designed to help the poor. Of course police officers are going to use excessive force. Of course police officers are going to have and act on racial and class-based preferences. And then the system — in the courts, the prosecutor’s office, and the grand jury — is going to protect itself. That’s the system, unless you believe in unicorns. The system is designed to protect the system. And it does that very well, so it is well designed. If the left were really serious about helping the poor, they would recognize that the only answer is much less of the system.
We have criminalized so many behaviors (in the Staten Island case, selling packs of cigarettes!) that we have given the police enormous pressure to perform — and gigantic latitude to act on prejudice, bigotry, and simple anger. The police, in their defense, have an impossible job. They have come to see almost everyone around them, every day, as a lawbreaker and a danger to society. Harvey Silverglate has famously estimated that most of us commit at least three felonies per day. The only thing that prevents us from being jailed is the discretion and public spiritedness of the prosecutor.
Of course, I myself don’t really need to worry. I have creamy white skin and quite a bit of money in my bank account. White people are largely unaffected. The almost-but-not-funny hashtag #crimingwhilewhite shows the truth: rich white people can break the law, and they won’t get charged nearly as often.
Still, even I don’t want to have to rely on the discretion and public spiritedness of the prosecutor. I’d rather rely on the fact — and it is a fact — that I haven’t actually done anything wrong, and therefore the laws that could be used to charge me with felonies shouldn’t exist in the first place. More and more, our government’s motto when it comes to citizens is “trust but terrify.”
As long as overreaching laws effectively criminalize being black or poor, it’s not surprising that the police will continue to treat black people and poor people as criminals.
This kind of race-based law enforcement is given the stink eye by our friends on the left, but they can’t seem to draw the obvious inference: the answer is not better police or more enlightened officials. The answer is fewer laws. That’s the long division in our society, the most important difference that arises from class and social status.
Decriminalize normal nonviolent daily activity, and the police will have fewer excuses to harass people they don’t like — people who often can’t fight back.
Michael Munger is the director of the philosophy, politics, and economics program at Duke University. He is a past president of the Public Choice Society.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/20141209_morepolicedetail.png313631Foundation for Economic Education (FEE)http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngFoundation for Economic Education (FEE)2014-12-14 09:19:282014-12-14 09:19:28The System Protects the System
This bulletin seems a bit tardy, as there has already been lone wolf domestic terrorism recently — the axe-wielding jihadist in New York City, the Oklahoma City beheader, and more. But of course, it isn’t about jihadis at all. The FBI and DHS aren’t warning about lone wolf Islamic jihadists — rather, they’re concerned about violent attacks from adherents of the “Phineas Priest ideology.” Which group is larger? The answer is obvious. But which group has powerful advocates within the Obama Administration?
Contrast this with the FBI taking down a poster of the Most Wanted Terrorists from Seattle buses after Muslims complained that those terrorists were all Muslims.
“FBI, DHS Issue Bulletin for Law Enforcement Warning of Lone Wolf Domestic Terrorism,” ABC News Radio, December 12, 2014:
(NEW YORK) — The FBI and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security have issued a bulletin to local law enforcement agencies around the nation, warning of the threat of lone-wolf domestic terrorists.
The bulletin referenced the Austin, Texas, shooting spree last month in which Larry McQuilliams fired over 100 rounds at a number of buildings, including a federal courthouse, a bank, the Consulate General of Mexico and the Austin Police Department headquarters. Law enforcement ultimately shot and killed McQuilliams.
According to the bulletin, McQuilliams “was at least partially inspired by the Phineas Priest ideology — which advocates lone offender action.” That ideology, expressed in a 1990 book titled Vigilantes of Christendom: The History of the Phineas Priesthood, was interpreted from the story of Phineas in chapter 25 of the biblical Book of Numbers to justify white supremacist violence, the bulletin says. The book was found in a rented van used by McQuilliams during his spree, along with a handwritten note in which he described himself as a member of the “priesthood.”
Law enforcement agencies are warned about the difficulty to identify and track followers of the idology [sic], as they do not rely on “collective resources of an organization with centralized leadership, formal membership, or a coordinating body that can be tracked or monitored by law enforcement.”
The bulletin cites other examples of criminal and terrorist incident tied to believers of the ideology. It also provides law enforcement with some things they can look out for.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/Neo-nazi-635x357-e1418561103608.jpg370640Jihad Watchhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngJihad Watch2014-12-14 07:45:332014-12-14 07:45:33FBI, DHS issue bulletin for law enforcement warning of lone wolf domestic terrorism
To read this report as a PDF with additional graphics, click here.
As we noted in last week’s FairTax® Friday, we had an aggressive week of meetings in Washington, D.C. – meeting with Members of the House and Senate and key senior committee staff. The meetings were both productive and instructive regarding how the 114th Congress may be approaching near-term tax reform.
We found a general excitement in the halls and offices as the 113th Congress comes to a close and the 114th prepares for the opening gavel. It was clear that Members believe that the mid-term changes will lead to a resumption of more normal operations, which have been stalled for several years.
Newly-elected members are locating offices, retiring members are setting up K Street digs and Washington’s elite are hosting farewell and holiday receptions, which is where deals are being made, votes are being bartered and power is being solidified. Yes, the mid-term elections brought significant change but rest assured, the power elite will always try to protect the status quo – something we must not allow to happen.
To refresh, we met with:
Congressman Paul Ryan (WI-1), 114th Chairman, Ways & Means Committee
Congressman Kevin Brady (TX-8), Ranking Member, Ways & Means Committee, Co-sponsor H.R. 25
Director of Economic Policy, 113th Joint Economic Committee
Senior Economist, 113th Joint Economic Committee
David Burton, Senior Economic Fellow, Heritage Foundation Co-author H.R. 25
Dan Mastromarco, AFFT Trustee, Co-author H.R. 25
Dr. Laurence J. Kotlikoff, Professor of Economics, Boston University and Author, FairTax economic studies
Across all of our meetings, there were several key themes that emerged. These themes focused on the importance of tax reform, an essential change to dynamic scoring and the importance of increasing the effectiveness of our grassroots efforts.
We found:
Tax reform continues to be on everyone’s discussion card.It is clear that tax reform will be a priority agenda item in the broader 114th Congress and the House Ways and Means Committee.
At least in the early part of the 114th, it appears that tax reform will be incremental versus bold and sweeping. This strategy, if it holds, would acknowledge the differences and difficulties between the majority party in the House and Senate, and the executive branch.
The general principle of a national consumption tax seems to be gaining broader acceptance across the political spectrum. The challenge remains gaining non-partisan consensus that a single rate national consumption tax cannot co-exist with an income tax, and the FairTax must be the preferred delivery vehicle.
The FairTax continues to be favorably viewed. Our challenge is to fully identify those Members who are supportive of the FairTax but who have not made public their private support. It is vital that we work to further educate them and provide them with the necessary encouragement to make public their support of the FairTax Plan.
It was considered essential that the FairTax campaign have significant numbers of paid members in targeted districts where we are trying to exert influence.
The recommendation continues to be that AFFT needs to increase our paid membership as a demonstration of the growing depth and breadth of citizen support.
There was significant interest in the negative impact the growing evasion problem will have on the current income tax code and how the FairTax would effectively address this problem. In follow-up, recent studies that were shared verbally with Members and staff to document the magnitude of the problem will be sent to key staff.
Congressman Ryan is very eager to ensure that dynamic scoring (he calls it “accurate scoring”) will be used in the evaluation of all tax reform plans (see below for a further explanation as to why this is so important to the FairTax campaign). According to recent media reports, the ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee (and expected Chairman in the 114th) Senator Orrin Hatch (UT), also enthusiastically supports the use of dynamic scoring.
It was strongly suggested that H.R. 25 must be scored again by the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) – this time using dynamic scoring – and one Member enthusiastically offered to lead the charge in getting this re-score underway.
It was repeatedly recommended that AFFT have key representative(s) in Washington at least one week per month, every month in 2015.
As a result of what we learned and the recommendations we heard, our immediate plan is to return to Washington for one week in mid-January, mid-February and mid-March.
Our goals will be to:
Introduce the FairTax to the newly elected Members of the House and Senate.
Visit every 114th co-sponsor of HR 25 and S 122.
Answer questions and concerns from Members who are favorably inclined towards the FairTax but who have not yet decided to publicly support it.
Identify areas of potential bi-partisan agreement on consumption taxes, scoring, elimination of the IRS etc., and how the FairTax benefits all Americans.
Establish trusted relationships with more key Members, staff and committee representatives.
Provide Members and staff with in-depth briefings and analysis, and become their “go to” expert on the FairTax.
Develop relationships with, educate and serve as a resource to senior tax and economic fellows at key public policy organizations in the greater Washington area.
Provide the FairTax voice at Washington-based tax reform coalitions.
Begin developing relationships with Washington area political, tax and economic journalists and bloggers.
These actions will be an interim measure while we continue our Club 535 fundraising that will fund a full-time Washington, D.C. FairTax office.
Since the Budget Act of 1974, the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) has the responsibility for scoring most revenue-related legislation, including tax reform legislation. The purpose of scoring is to predict the amount of money either raised or lost by the proposed tax legislation. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) also provides scoring but generally does so for more limited revenue-affecting legislation like import tariffs.
The JCT consists of five members from the Senate Finance Committee and five members from the House Committee on Ways and Means.
The JCT Chairman rotates between the Senate and the House each Congressional term. In the 113th Congress, Senator Wyden (OR) chaired the JCT. In the first session of the 114th Congress, beginning in January 2015, the JCT will have six Republican members and four Democrat members, and will be chaired by Congressman Paul Ryan (WI-1). In the second session, beginning in 2016, the 114th Senate Finance Committee Chairman, Senator Orin Hatch (UT), will chair it.
By a majority vote, the JCT selects the chief of staff who then selects non-career staff. Career staff serve at the pleasure of the chairman and chief of staff and can be replaced at any time. The majority of the JCT will then direct the procedures used by the JCT staff in scoring legislation. Senator Hatch and Congressman Ryan have announced that they will insist that the JCT use dynamic, or as Congressman Ryan says, “Accurate Scoring.”
“The starting point for a revenue estimate prepared by the Joint Committee staff is the Congressional Budget Office (“CBO”) 10-year projection of Federal receipts, referred to as the “revenue baseline.” The revenue baseline serves as the benchmark for measuring the effects of proposed tax law changes. The baseline assumes that present law remains unchanged during the 10-year budget period. Thus, the revenue baseline is an estimate of the Federal revenues that will be collected over the next 10 years in the absence of statutory changes. In providing conventional estimates, the Joint Committee staff assumes that a proposal will not change total income and therefore holds Gross National Product (“GNP”) fixed.”
Static scoring assumes that tax cuts will have no change on the economic behavior of affected individuals and no impact on economic growth. For example, static scoring assumes if $100 is taxed at 50% (producing $50 in revenue), and the government lowers the tax rate to 25% (now producing $25 in governmental revenue with a $25 revenue loss), the lower tax rate won’t encourage anyone to behave any differently than they currently do.
Dynamic scoring tries to estimate the changes tax cuts have on economic behavior. For example, dynamic scoring assumes that if a 50% tax on $100 produces $50 in revenue, then lowering the tax rate to 25% will produce $25 in revenue, as static scoring predicts, and predicts that individuals will work more (if it’s an income tax cut) or realize more capital gains (if it’s a capital gains tax cut, etc.) because they will get to keep more of their money. This changed behavior will produce an extra $100, for example, which is also taxed at $25, resulting in a total of $50 in revenue, and no loss for the government.
The logic behind static scoring reminds us of the story once told by a Member of the Senate Finance Committee in the mid-‘80s during another series of tax reform debates. Late one night the Senator, as a joke, asked the JCT to prepare a revenue estimate of all income over $250,000 per year if it was taxed at 100%. To his astonishment, the next morning the JCT sent over an estimate of how much additional revenue this would produce. The Senator was stunned that anyone would think that people would continue to work as hard when 100% of their income was withheld for taxes.
Economic Effects of The FairTax®
When static scoring is used to project the income produced by the FairTax (as was done in earlier scoring models on the FairTax prepared by the JCT and most recently in 2014), it does not take into account any of the economic benefits that will be produced by the FairTax Plan. More important, static scoring requires a higher FairTax rate to produce the same income as the present income tax code.
Dynamic scoring accounts for these variables and places the FairTax Plan on a much more level playing field with other tax reform measures that are being considered. All reform measures, however, can only be reviewed properly if all other assumptions, e.g. evasion etc., are properly stated and counted.
When the FairTax is properly scored using the dynamic scoring methodology, we are confident the contrast between the FairTax and the present income tax will dramatically reflect how the FairTax will:
Increase the rate of economic growth;
Increase U.S. job growth;
Increase federal revenues;
Reduce evasion; and
Provide all Americans with simple and fair taxation.
Our meetings this past week would not have been possible without your support. We thank you and ask you for your continued support. Now more than ever, it is vital that the FairTax have a steady and strong presence in the nation’s capital. Our campaign relies entirely upon your generosity – to have that presence we need your continued support.
This week the political partisanship of Washington – which everyone has spoken about so much in recent years – dealt a devastating blow not only to itself but to the reputation of America.
The Senate Intelligence Committee looking into the actions of the CIA under the last Republican presidency split long before the majority report on the committee’s findings were published earlier this week. Indeed the Republicans on the Committee left when they realised that the Democrat majority had decided in advance that its role was to damn the CIA for its actions during the Presidency of George W Bush. One sign that this was the case was the Committee’s refusal to interview, speak with or otherwise hear the accounts of those people who had headed the Agency during the period in question.
Well this week the report came out. And the world’s press reported not the Minority Committee’s rebuttals, nor the CIA’s detailed refutations, but the charges that over a sustained period in the last decade the CIA had brought a ‘stain’ on the reputation of America.
It is important to remember what is and is not accurate in this. It is true – and has long been known from the memoirs of members of the administration among others – that for a brief period after 9/11 ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’ were used on the most high-ranking captives among enemy combatants. Water-boarding – the most extreme of these measures – was used on three individuals, including the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. This was subsequently stopped from being used.
Among the permissible techniques this was the most serious. But there are certainly other occasions when individuals within the system stepped beyond the lines of what they should have done. It is for the CIA to investigate and make impossible any repeat of such events. But in all of this there are important lessons to learn.
Firstly to remember that in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 the aim was to prevent another such attack. That aim was achieved and it is likely – as with similar such historic events – that the public will never know what lengths were gone to to keep them safe. In addition this all took place against the background of a new type of war which politicians and publics in Britain, America and other Western countries seem very reluctant to acknowledge or understand. It is a war against an enemy which does not wear uniform, does not subscribe to the normal laws of war and which uses our own virtues as societies against us.
Damning the CIA is easy. Explaining how you would do things better and keep the American people safe is not. It is therefore striking that this week’s report carried not one recommendation. It was all simply condemnation, condemnation, condemnation. A more worthy action of a Senate committee would have been to acknowledge the problems we all face – and which our security services are on the cutting edge of – and then work out what went wrong, what went right and create a system to ensure the best is kept and the worst consigned to history. Instead the Senate has this week simply delivered the most terrific blow to the reputation of the USA throughout the world. There are ways for countries to release information about their flaws. And then there are partisan political petrol bombs. This week’s report was the latter. And it will take years to put out its flames.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/cia-2.jpg360640Henry Jackson Societyhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngHenry Jackson Society2014-12-12 15:12:232014-12-12 15:12:23The CIA Report: A Partisan Petrol Bomb
As the sophistication of commercially available drones increases our electrical grid becomes more vulnerable.
Who was piloting the drones and for what purpose?
What lies behind the suspicious flights at night?
What if these drones were outfitted with infrared cameras to spot the strong heat signatures emanating from the vulnerable ‘open air’ giant transformers responsible for delivering electricity from the generating plant, to the municipal substations, then to your home?
If several of these ‘giant transformers’ were to unexpectedly go offline, for any reason, would it could cause a ‘cascade effect’ resulting in rolling blackouts all along France’s electrical grid?
Federal experts who examined a California substation after an attack last April were attached to the Joint Warfare Analysis Center at Dahlgren, Va, yields clues about the importance of this issue.
The attack to the California substation went unchallenged for over an hour.
“The Silicon Valley power substation that was attacked by a sniper in April 2013 was hit by thieves early Wednesday morning, according to the Pacific Gas and Electric Company, despite increased security.
The substation, near San Jose, Calif., is the source of energy for thousands of customers, and the idea that it was the target of a well-organized attack, and that it might have been disabled for an extended period, raised anxieties about the possible broader vulnerability of the grid.”
In the 2013 attack, shots were fired into the radiators of giant transformers. Without these giant transformers no electricity would enter the grid disrupting power along that particular grid matrix.
Are there enough replacements of these giant transformers readily available and in the right locations to repair the damaged power stations without a significant disruption of electricity to its customers?
We should be aware the time delay of manufacturing and delivering these giant transformers can be a lengthy process taking months or even years.
Arkansas Attacks – You Should Have Expected US
Arkansas experienced three attacks to its electrical grid in August, September, and October of 2013. These attacks were not as sophisticated as the California attacks but did cause over $2 Million dollars in damage and 10,000 people temporarily lost power.
The Arkansas attacker left an ominous note at the entrance of the electrical power station in black marker, “You should have expected US”
The drone nuclear plant flyovers are a wake up call to those who are tasked with the responsibility of protecting our United States, Regional, and Local power grids.
Remember when: Ten years ago in Ohio, a high-voltage power line brushed against some trees, which shut down a power line, which knocked out a transformer, which cascaded through the northeast electric power grid until 50 million people from Ontario to New Jersey were without power. The Northeast Blackout resulted in 11 deaths and cost about $6 billion. It affected every segment of our society—from healthcare, transportation, and commerce to public safety and national security. In a modern world, electrical power is more than a convenience. It’s a necessity. (MITRE.org)
Important Questions
What would happen to the national and regional power grids if a small number of these giant transformers are put out of commission?
If a number of these giant transformers are simultaneously taken out, will an uncontrollable ‘Cascade Effect’ overwhelm our regional and or nationwide electrical grids?
What if a number of simultaneous attacks on these giant transformers were to happen today, are we prepared to successfully block the effects of this nightmarish scenario?
Even though Ayaan Hirsi Ali was raised a Muslim in a Muslim country, and Joe Biden has almost certainly never opened a Qur’an, Biden believed he knew more about Islam than she did. Why? Because her opinion of the religion was negative, and the possibility that such a view could have any merit whatsoever is inconceivable in Washington circles. Those who hold it must be ignorant.
“Ayaan Hirsi Ali fights radical Islam’s real war on women,” by Ashe Schow, Washington Examiner, December 8, 2014:
In early April of this year, Brandeis University, under pressure from student activists and the Council on American-Islamic Relations, reversed its decision to give an honorary degree to Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a global advocate for women’s rights.
The decision was triggered by Hirsi Ali’s outspoken criticisms of Islam. The Somali-born activist has sounded alarms about the prevalence of extremism in Muslim countries and the misogyny that pervades even mainstream Islam.
During the Brandeis controversy, a CAIR spokesman called her “one of the worst of the worst of the Islam-haters in America.”
But Hirsi Ali’s warnings about Islamic extremism were quickly supported by world events, as just a week after Brandeis rescinded her honorary degree, the Islamist terrorist organization Boko Haram kidnapped more than 200 Nigerian schoolgirls in the first of many such abductions throughout the summer. A few months after the kidnappings began, news spread that the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, another terrorist group, was selling Yazidi women into sexual slavery….
Bundled up and fearful of shaking hands because of a cough, Hirsi Ali sat down with the Washington Examiner in November before being presented an award by the Independent Women’s Forum at its Women of Valor Dinner in Washington. She noted that where extremist ideology spreads, death and mayhem flourish.
“That consequence you see today in parts of Iraq and Syria,” Hirsi Ali said. “You see it in what Boko Haram is doing. You’ve seen it with the Taliban and al Qaeda. Everywhere where that idea is implemented it has a sudden pattern.”
Critics have attacked Hirsi Ali as Islamophobic and have argued that the portrait she paints is not representative of Islam at large. But her disagreements with Islam are rooted in her own East African upbringing.
Hirsi Ali was subjected to female genital mutilation at the age of 5 in her home country, Somalia, while her father, who opposed the traditional practice, was in prison. Her father escaped and moved the family to Saudi Arabia, then to Ethiopia and finally to Kenya when Hirsi Ali was 11 years old.
She grew up as a Muslim woman, reading and accepting the Quran and its teachings. But when her family prepared to force her into an arranged marriage, she fled to the Netherlands. She eventually became a translator, speaking on behalf of Somali women who, like her, were seeking asylum….
Liberals, she said, protect Islamic extremists partly because the Left has no idea what really goes on in Muslim countries.
“They feel all religions are the same, and they’re not,” she observed. “I think if I adopt the position in good faith to multiculturalists and leftists, I would say [they take the position they do] because they see them [Muslims] as victims. They see them as victims of the white man and so they think: ‘Let’s protect them from the white man. Let’s protect them from capitalism.’… That is misguided at best and malicious at worst.”…
“Wherever [Islamists] gain power, you see exactly what they do: The first thing they do is they chase women out of the public space, force them to cover up, beat them up, rape them, sell them into slavery,” Hirsi Ali said.
Such violence against women needs to be exposed, and Western liberals need to “review their thinking,” she said.
That will prove difficult. In her speech to the dinner guests in Washington, Hirsi Ali recalled meeting Vice President Joe Biden. He informed her that “ISIS had nothing to do with Islam.” When she disagreed with him, Biden actually responded: “Let me tell you one or two things about Islam.”
“I politely left the conversation at that,” Hirsi Ali said, to laughter. “I wasn’t used to arguing with vice presidents.”…
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/Ayaan-Hirsi-Ali-e1418376901541.jpg370640Jihad Watchhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngJihad Watch2014-12-12 04:35:102014-12-12 04:35:10Biden tried to lecture Hirsi Ali about Islam
In the article below you may read how Robin Raphel, who was appointed to a number of important positions by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, subsequently committed High Treason. Clinton’s extremely poor judgment in the appointment of Robin Raphael, and her failure to protect the US Ambassador to Libya, two Navy SEALs, and a U.S. Embassy Communications Expert in the Battle of Benghazi highlights the fact that she is a one woman wrecking ball. Hillary Clinton is unfit for duty as President.
HIGH TREASON: FBI SPY Probe of Powerful Clinton Ally Robin Raphel
A longtime Clinton ally, assistant secretary of state for South Asian affairs in the Clinton administration, former Ambassador to Tunisia and donor, Robin Raphel, is at the center of an FBI counterintelligence (spy) probe. She was a registered foreign agent for the Pakistani government up until just days before she was appointed to run the U.S. State Department’s Pakistan aid team ….. (read more)
American investigators intercepted a conversation this year in which a Pakistani official said that his government was receiving American secrets from a prominent former State Department diplomat, officials said, setting off an espionage investigation.
If this were a Republican (think Scooter Libby, who was falsely accused of a bogus leak to the press), the media would be all over this like white on rice. Instead, it has caused barely a ripple in the traitor press.
But the Indian media has been reporting on it closely. Raphel alienated our ally India and damaged our close relationship with that key ally when she recognized Pakistan’s jihad claims to Kashmir, changing longtime American policy.
In 1995, U.S. diplomat Robin Raphel was the toast of the State department. President Bill Clinton appointed her the first Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia (the post later included Central Asia), and she was known to be close to him and Hillary Clinton …. more here.
Between Huma Abedin, Robin Raphel, and Benghazi, former Sec of State Hillary Clinton became a one-woman American wrecking ball.
Robin Raphel, a veteran State Department diplomat and longtime Pakistan expert is under federal investigation as part of a counterintelligence probe and has had her security clearances withdrawn, according to U.S. officials.
The FBI searched the Northwest Washington home of Robin L. Raphel last month, and her State Department office was also examined and sealed, officials said. Raphel, a fixture in Washington’s diplomatic and think-tank circles, was placed on administrative leave last month, and her contract with the State Department was allowed to expire this week. (Washington Post)
The Republic is infiltrated with traitors like Robin Raphel, Marxists, and Communists appointees of Obama.
In 1993, President Clinton appointed Raphel as the first Assistant Secretary of State for a newly created position within the State Department[3] that would focus on a growing array of problems in Afghanistan, Pakistan and India, including democratic stability, nuclear proliferation, energy access, Islamist and Taliban extremism, poverty and women’s rights issues.
Raphel was an early and adamant supporter of the Taliban.
A second major policy directive that Raphel advocated and developed during her tenure was engagement and cooperation with the Taliban
Robin Lynn Raphel is a former American diplomat, Ambassador, CIA Analyst and an expert on Pakistan affairs.[1] Until November 2, 2014, she served as coordinator for non-military assistance to Pakistan, carrying on the work of the late Richard Holbrooke, whose AfPak team she joined in 2009.[2] In 1993, she was appointed by President Bill Clinton as the nation’s first Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs, a newly created position at the time designed to assist the U.S. government in managing an increasingly complex region.
Robin Raphel later served as U.S. Ambassador to Tunisia from November 7, 1997 to August 6, 2000, during President Bill Clinton’s second term in office.
In the 2000s, Robin Raphel held a number of official positions related to her expertise on South Asia.
In 2009, Robin Raphel joined the Afghanistan-Pakistan task force known as AfPak, joining the late Richard Holbrooke, U.S. Special Representative for the Af-Pak region. Her focus was how to allocate U.S. resources committed under the proposed Kerry-Lugar Bill. That legislation was enacted in late 2009, tripling civilian U.S. aid to Pakistan to approximately $1.5 billion annually (Wikipedia)
“Raphel probe triggered by intercept of Pakistan official’s chat,” Indian Express (via the NY Times)| Washington | November 21, 2014 (thanks to Lookmann)
American investigators intercepted a conversation this year in which a Pakistani official suggested that his government was receiving American secrets from a prominent former State Department diplomat, officials said, setting off an espionage investigation that has stunned diplomatic circles here.
That conversation led to months of secret surveillance on the former diplomat, Robin L Raphel, and an FBI raid last month at her home, where agents discovered classified information, the officials said.
The investigation is an unexpected turn in a distinguished career that has spanned four decades. Raphel rose to become one of the highest-ranking female diplomats and a fixture in foreign policy circles, serving as ambassador to Tunisia and as assistant secretary of state for South Asian affairs in the Clinton administration.
Raphel, 67, considered one of the leading American experts on Pakistan, was stripped of her security clearances last month and no longer has access to the State Department building .
Raphel has not been charged with a crime. The scope of the investigation is not known, and it is unclear exactly what the Pakistani official said in the intercepted conversation that led to suspicion about Raphel.
Still, the new details shed some light on the evidence that Justice Department prosecutors are weighing as they decide whether to bring charges. And they help explain why the FBI viewed the matter seriously enough to search her home and State Department office, steps that would bring the investigation into the open.
Raphel is among a generation of diplomats who rose through the ranks of the State Department at a time when Pakistan was among America’s closest allies and a reliable bulwark against the Soviet Union. After retiring from the government in 2005, she lobbied on behalf of the Pakistani government before accepting a contract to work as a State Department advisor.
While the FBI secretly watched Raphel in recent months, agents suspected that she was improperly taking classified information home from the State Department, the officials said. Armed with a warrant, the agents searched her home in a prosperous neighbourhood near the Maryland border with Washington, and found classified information, the officials said.
Andrew Rice, a spokesman for Raphel, said: “Nothing has changed for Ambassador Raphel. She has not been told she is the target of an investigation, and she has not been questioned.”
In a sign of the seriousness of the case, Raphel has hired Amy Jeffress, a lawyer who until recently was one of the Justice Department’s top national security prosecutors. Jeffress served as a counsellor to Attorney General Eric H Holder Jr on security matters, as the Justice Department’s attaché to London, and as chief of national security at the United States Attorney’s Office in Washington. She joined the law firm Arnold & Porter this year. Jeffress declined to comment.
While the US and Pakistan remain allies in the war on terrorism, tensions between the two countries have been frequently strained. American officials suspect Pakistan of supporting the Taliban and believe Pakistan has dispatched several double agents to collect intelligence from the US government. Pakistani officials bristle continued…
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/640px-Barack_Obama_Cabinet_Sebelius_Hillary_Clinton_Swine_Flu_5-1.jpg427640Joseph R. Johnhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngJoseph R. John2014-12-11 07:36:062014-12-11 07:38:50HIGH TREASON: FBI SPY Probe of Powerful Clinton Ally Robin Raphel
To understand all the talk of “climate change” you must understand that everything and everyone involved—except for those of us who debunk the lies—are engaged in a criminal enterprise to transfer billions from industrialized nations to those who have failed to provide a thriving economy, often because they are run by dictators or corrupt governments who skim the money for themselves.
The lies being inflicted on Americans include Obama’s “war on coal” that is shutting down coal-fired plants that affordably and efficiently produce the electricity the nation needs, along with the six-year delay of the Keystone XL pipeline. Add in the thousands of Environmental Protection Agency regulations affecting our manufacturing, business and agricultural sectors and the price we are paying is huge.
At its heart, environmentalism hates capitalism.
One of the worst parts of this scam to take from the rich and give to the poor—otherwise known as “redistribution”—is the way the world’s media have played along since 1992 when the first Earth Summit was held in Rio. The perpetrators are headquartered in the United Nations, home to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that sets the agenda.
While the 20th session of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change’s Conference of Parties meets in Lima, Peru this week, perhaps the most egregious and outrageous example of journalism was the December 2nd Associated Press article, “Hotter, Weirder: How Climate Change and Changed the Earth.” It is not attributed to a specific reporter; perhaps because it is filled with lies from start to finish.
It starts with the biggest lie of all: “WASHINGTON (AP) — In the more than two decades since world leaders first got together to try to solve global warming, life on Earth has changed, not just the climate. It’s gotten hotter, more polluted with heat-trapping gases, more crowded and just downright wilder.”
The Earth is in the 19th year of a natural cooling cycle, the result of a comparable cycle on the Sun which is producing less radiation to warm the planet. What astounds anyone who knows this is the article’s assertion that “It’s almost a sure thing that 2014 will go down as the hottest year in 135 years of record keeping, meteorologists at NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center say. If so, this will be the sixth time since 1992 that the world set or tied a new annual record for the warmest year.”
Would government agencies that are beholden to the existing administration for their budgets lie to the public? Yes, they would. While all fifty states experienced freezing weather within the past month, we are still being told that 2014 set new records for warmth. To borrow a phrase from Jonathan Gruber, the architect of ObamaCare, the government can tell “stupid” voters and others anything it wants in order to achieve its goals.
For the record, in 2013 and much of 2014, there have been record low numbers of tornadoes and hurricanes. There was a record gain in Arctic and Antarctic ice. There was no change in the rate of sea level rise; something measured in millimeters. The weather is the weather and that includes dramatic events such as blizzards or droughts, but it is hardly uniform. Depending on where you live on planet Earth, you will experience it differently on any given day.
As representatives of 190 climate mafia meet in Peru, you will be given data about carbon dioxide (CO2). The AP article cites increases of “60 percent.” If that were true, it would be good news. All vegetation on Earth depends on CO2, just as humans and other living creatures depend on oxygen. More CO2 means healthier forests and greater crop yields, an agricultural bonus in a world that needs to feed seven billion people. But it’s not true. Nor is the claim that the mere 0.04% of CO2 in the Earth’s atmosphere traps so much heat we’re all going to die. It doesn’t and most of us will die of old age.
As Amy Ridenour of the National Center for Public Policy Research reported in June, “The U.S. already leads the world in CO2 reductions and is a great role model. U.S. energy-related CO2 emissions fell 12.6 percent between 2005 and 2012, thanks to technology and conservation. Worldwide, CO2 emissions increased by 17.7 percent during the same period.” That’s a far cry from the AP claim of 60 percent.
The Peru conference is another effort to impose a global tax on “carbon” and to increase the UN’s “Climate Fund” to which some nations have pledged $9.3 billion. To put this in perspective, the United States just set a new record of $18 TRILLION in debt and cannot afford to be pledging money to that fund or any other fund. Most of that debt has been incurred during the one and a half terms of Barack Obama who just happens to be telling everyone that “climate change” is the greatest threat to all life on Earth.
“Climate change” is what the 4.5 billion-year-old Earth has been doing during all that time and will continue to do. Humans experience it as the “weather” which is measured in days and weeks while climate is measured in units not less than thirty years and more often in centuries. Today’s weather prediction is good for, at best, five days and is subject to change at any time.
As for all those claims about “global warming” it’s worth keeping in mind that not one of the computer models cited to prove it has been accurate. There isn’t a model or a computer big enough to take in all the many elements that compose the weather anywhere and everywhere on Earth. The weather is always in a state of flux and change, just as the temperatures during any hour of the day are in a stage of change.
Here’s a bit of advice. Do not believe anything that comes out of the UN conference because, scientifically speaking, it will be a lie. And don’t believe anything the Associated Press reports on “climate change” because that too must automatically be regarded as a lie as well.
Whatever Barack Obama has to say about “climate change” (formerly known as “global warming”) is a lie. It would be nice to have a President and a government we could trust.
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region—The Islamic State (ISIS) has appointed a new Mosul governor (Wali) to replace the former governor who was killed in an airstrike last month, a source inside the city said.
The source said that Hassan Saeed al-Jubouri known as Abu Talut was appointed by ISIS as governor of Mosul.
Mosul was named by the ISIS as Wilayat Naynawa (Nineveh State) after the group declared itself an Islamic State last summer.
Radhwan Hamdouni known as Abu Laith, the former ISIS governor of Mosul was killed along with the group’s military commander in an airstrike near Mosul last month.
Also on Saturday a Rudaw source inside Mosul said that ISIS has raided people’s homes and arrested young men to fight for the group.
The source said that the group also fears that the young men might defect to the Iraqi army or other forces for a potential attack on Mosul.
EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is of an Islamic State military parade in Mosul, Iraq.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/84511Image1.jpg286460Terrorism Research & Analysis Consortiumhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngTerrorism Research & Analysis Consortium2014-12-08 09:48:422014-12-08 09:49:02Islamic State appoints new Mosul governor
“However, below the back scratching lay a deep and dark underpinning to the relationship between the crescent and the swastika. That was, of course, a hatred of the Jews, and in particular, a desire to see the eradication of Israel.” Indeed so. Islamic Jew-hatred was a useful tool for the Nazis in gaining Muslim recruits, such as the Bosnian Muslim SS division that the Mufti of Jerusalem raised up.
Nowadays, those who are the sons and heirs of the Muslims who collaborated with the Nazis charge foes of jihad terror with Nazi sympathies. They know, in other words, how to dazzle and co-opt the Left: charge their foes with being “Nazis,” and sit back and watch the Pavlovian reaction.
“Hitler’s Henchmen in Arabia,” by Guy Walters, The Daily Beast, December 7, 2014:
Nazi Alois Brunner’s confirmed death in Damascus reveals an uncomfortable truth: Egypt and Syria have long ties to Nazi Germany and long provided sanctuary to fugitive war criminals.
When most of us think of the premier retirement destination for unrepentant Nazis, our minds immediately turn to South America. We think of Josef Mengele hidden on a lonely estancia in Paraguay, or Adolf Eichmann ensconced in a two-bit suburb of Buenos Aires.
This perception was magnified by a slew of sensational books that were published in the early 1970s, many of which promoted a very iffy thesis that former Nazis were using the continent as a launchpad for a “Fourth Reich” that would, yes, take over the world.
This culminated in Ira Levin’s 1976 thriller, The Boys from Brazil, in which fiendish Nazis hatch a diabolical plot to unleash several cloned Hitlers onto the world. The book was made into a film in 1978, and starred no less than Gregory Peck and Laurence Olivier, who were presumably behind on the rent.
But as the recent declaration of the death of the former SS officer and Eichmann henchman Alois Brunner reveals, the boys didn’t just go to Brazil. For Brunner, like so many other Nazis, found the Middle East an equally hospitable location, and far less out-on-a-limb than a chalet in Patagonia, no matter how gemütlich.
Brunner, who sent an estimated 130,000 Jews to their deaths, made his home in Damascus, Syria, where he found the conditions much to his liking. Although there has been much guff peddled about Brunner’s postwar activities over the past few days—some of which may be true—there is no doubt that he worked in cahoots with the Assad regime, or at least certainly enjoyed its protection.
However, Brunner was not the only perpetrator of the Holocaust mooching around the streets of the Syrian capital. In terms of gruesome numbers, Franz Stangl, the former commandant of Treblinka extermination camp, had some 800,000 murders on what remained of his conscience, and he arrived in Damascus in September 1948 with the assistance of a Roman Catholic bishop.
That puts even our current crop of “Don’t Say Anything About Jihad Terror or Muslim Persecution of Christians, It Will Harm the ‘Dialogue’” Roman Catholic bishops to shame.
Although Brunner is said to have variously worked as an intelligence agent, an arms dealer, and a security advisor, Stangl took more menial positions in textile firms. Life was somewhat frugal, but manageable. Unfortunately for Stangl, the local chief of police took a fancy to his 14-year-old daughter and wanted to add the child to his harem. Stangl didn’t tarry, and packed his bags and shepherded his entire family to—you guessed it—Brazil.
Stangl seems to have been one of the few Nazis who didn’t find the air pleasing in Syria. Most, such as Major-General Otto-Ernst Remer, prospered on Arab Street. Remer was, frankly, a real piece of work, and having founded the swiftly-banned Socialist Reich Party in West Germany in the early 1950s, decided that working as an arms dealer with the likes of Brunner more rewarding.
What made the relationship between these former Nazis and the Egyptians and Syrians so successful was that it was a genuinely two-way deal.
Unlike Brunner, Remer was itinerant, and spent much time in that other nest of postwar Nazis—Cairo. If anything, the Egyptian capital was even more appealing than Damascus, and had been playing host to Nazis immediately after the war, when King Farouk opened his arms to scores of former SS and Gestapo officers.
That hospitality continued even after Farouk was deposed by the Free Officers Movement in 1952, as Nasser regarded German scientific and intelligence expertise as being an essential component of his regime. No less a figure than Joachim Daumling, the former head of the Gestapo in Düsseldorf, was tasked with establishing Nasser’s secret service.
In fact, the list of some habitués of Cairo in the 1950s and the 1960s reads like a who’s who of Nazi Germany, featuring as it did the rescuer of Mussolini, Otto Skorzeny; the ace Stuka pilot Hans-Ulrich Rudel; the leader of a notorious SS penal unit, Oskar Dirlewanger; and the particularly odious and violently anti-Semitic stooge of Goebbels, Johannes von Leers.
What made the relationship between these former Nazis and the Egyptians and Syrians so successful was that it was a genuinely two-way deal. The Arabs offered the Nazis a haven, as well as a market for all their nefarious dealings in arms and black market currency. The Nazis, meanwhile, were able to provide technical and military experts, as well as the knowhow of establishing the instruments of repression.
However, below the back scratching lay a deep and dark underpinning to the relationship between the crescent and the swastika. That was, of course, a hatred of the Jews, and in particular, a desire to see the eradication of Israel….
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/afdi-islamic-jew-hatred1-e1418048448761.jpeg480640Jihad Watchhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngJihad Watch2014-12-08 09:21:132014-12-08 09:22:59“Egypt and Syria have long ties to Nazi Germany”
“The secret to change is to focus all of your energy not on fighting the old, but on building the new.” – Dan Millman
Nowhere is change more evident than in Congress right now where farewell receptions are in full swing, movers are readying offices and K Street is aggressively courting outgoing Members and staff.
To say that this is a chaotic time in Washington is an understatement. Yet this week, while Steve Hayes, AFFT Chairman and President, and I were in Washington, D.C., Member after Member took time to meet with us — including the new Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, Congressman Paul Ryan (WI-1).
Ryan, who was extremely generous with his time, confirmed that he had previously read the first FairTax book and was going to read it again. We were delighted when he noted that he often spots FairTax t-shirts when traveling across Wisconsin.
We also met with:
Congresswoman Lynn Jenkins (KS-2)
Congressman Jim Bridenstine (OK-1)
Congressman Rob Woodall (GA-7)
Senator Mike Enzi (WY)
The Chief Tax Counsel – House Ways and Means Committee, and
The Director of Economic Policy – Joint Economic Committee
Congressman Kevin Brady (TX-8)
Early next week we will be sending you a special, in-depth report on our meetings and the advancement actions we will be taking as a result of our findings.
While flying home last night, two dominant themes became clear to me:
The economy, job creation and tax reform still dominate the political agenda. This is unquestionably the FairTax “sweet spot.”
Dynamic scoring will most likely become reality during the 114th. This is a major game changer for H.R. 25.
We made significant progress this week and have a lot to share with you about how we can ensure that the FairTax is not derailed by some of the Washington insiders who want to keep the same terrible income tax system.
It’s been said that there are three simple rules in life:
If you do not go after what you want, you’ll never have it.
If you do not ask, the answer will be no.
If you do not step forward, you will always be in the same place.
One message we heard in meeting after meeting was, “you have to be here on a regular basis if you really expect to make progress.” This was followed by, “Can you come back early in January?”
We need to go back to Washington in January and February and every month in 2015.
Thank you in advance for all you have done, all you are doing and all you will do in the future to make our dream of a FairTax for America come true.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/00_think453770225_Paycheck-Fairness-Act_800px-e1397169984848.png426640Cynthia Canevarohttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngCynthia Canevaro2014-12-07 06:59:592014-12-07 06:59:59Washington Meets the FairTax
It was after dark. I was taking a short cut to the convenience store through an alley. Ahead of me, a middle-aged white woman was walking down a side street and started to enter the alley. Upon realizing that I would be walking behind her, she made a quick turn out of the alley. Once inside the convenience store, I saw the woman come in. We were headed to the same destination, but she chose to take a different route.
As a black man, should I be offended for being racially profiled? Well guess what? The night before, a late night craving sent me headed to the convenience store down that same alley. A block away, I saw a white guy as he began to enter the alley. He and I would eventually cross paths. I immediately did a quick turn out of the alley. It was late and dark, without another single soul in sight.
Common sense dictated that I not unnecessarily put myself in a vulnerable situation. The white woman who chose to change her direction made the same wise decision. Does that make us both racists? No. It means we both used our brains and instincts to protect ourselves.
And yet, liberals who are obsessed with political correctness absurdly condemn such street-smart judgments, declaring them racial profiling and racist.
The reality is profiling is normal, expected and necessary. People dress to create their desired image/profile. For example: Stockbrokers wear suits to create a profile of trustworthiness. Hookers dress that they may be profiled as open for business. Gang members wear various colors and styles of apparel to specify their gang affiliation.
And yet, liberals expect us to ignore all signals sent out by people that telegraph who they are. Liberals are nuts.
I remember a horrific incident that happened in a white upscale neighborhood in Maryland. Three young black men were walking wearing gangster style apparel. Clearly, the men were out of place. Residents chose not to call security for fear of being called racist. The thugs hijacked a mom’s car, dragged her clinging to the door during their get-a-way and threw her toddler in the back seat out the window. If only political correctness had not prevented residents from following common sense and their instincts.
A Hispanic co-worker of mine was mugged while walking down a street in Baltimore by a bunch of gangster-attired black guys. My co-worker admitted that he was caught off guard because his mind was elsewhere. Had he been paying attention, he would have profiled the gang as they walked towards him and crossed over to the other side of the street. Liberals would call my co-worker a racist.
As a visual and musical artist (singer/songwriter) my appearance (signature hat and braid) is a bit distinctive. Add in the fact that I am black, and people assume I am liberal. Well, 90% of the time, their assumption/profile of people presenting themselves like me would be correct. The public is only using experience and common sense to read the messaging of who I am based on how I choose to present myself. Rather than scolding people for profiling me incorrectly, it is my responsibility to inform people that while my appearance reflects my artistic nature, I am a proud to be an American, and a Ronald Reagan conservative.
My wife has noticed that men relate to her more respectfully when she is wearing heels and a dress than when she is attired in flat shoes and jeans. When she is dressed, doors are held open for her and so on. A black male wearing a suit and tie is perceived differently than a black male with his cap turned around backwards and his pants worn below his butt. This is not racism. It is common sense, a logical response to how people present themselves.
Like many other liberal politically correct sacred cows, profiling is another item on their list that liberals bully us and demand that we go brain-dead. They decree that profiling of any kind is unacceptable — deemed racist, sexist and homophobic.
The overwhelming majority of terrorist attacks have been committed by Middle Eastern men between the ages of 18-35. And yet, such men wearing Islamic apparel breeze pass TSA at the airport, due to hypersensitivity against profiling. Meanwhile, an old white-haired Caucasian grandmother confined to a wheel chair is all but strip searched by TSA.
I realize that liberals are going to have a cow over what I am about to say. Profiling is a necessary God-given survival instinct.
As a black man, if I wandered into a setting in which everyone is wearing white sheet hoods and robes, it would be prudent to profile them quickly and get the heck out of there. It would also be unwise to quote Cleavon Little in the movie, Blazing Saddles: “Where the white women at?”
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/KIDS-e1471946784319.jpg428640Lloyd Marcushttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngLloyd Marcus2014-12-07 06:14:272014-12-07 06:14:27Profiling: Sin or Survival Instinct
Qatar’s Ambassador to Washington H.E. Mohammed Jaham Al-Kuwari is a veteran diplomat with 32 years of service to the small gas rich wealthy Arab state on a peninsula jutting into the Persian Gulf off Saudi Arabia. American educated at the University of Portland, Oregon with graduate work at the University of Madrid in Spain, he speaks several languages including Farsi used during a diplomatic post in Tehran. He has held a number of diplomatic posts, Foreign Ministry and Cabinet positions. As Qatar’s Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary, he presented his credentials to President Obama in the Oval Office in March 2014. Ambassador Al-Kuwari spoke Friday, December 5th at the monthly meeting of the Tiger Bay Club in Pensacola, Florida.
Qatar with its capital of Doha has fewer subjects than the metropolitan Pensacola area, approximately 300,000. There are also upwards of 1.7 million foreign workers residing in Qatar with some evidence of human rights violations. Human Rights Watch in its 2014 World Report noted:
Migrants continue to experience serious rights violations, including forced labor and arbitrary restrictions on the right to leave Qatar, which expose them to exploitation and abuse by employers.
The soft spoken Qatari diplomatic representative flew in from “wintry DC” the prior evening to be greeted by Pensacola Mayor Ashton Hayward, Escambia County Commissioner Michael Underwood and the board of the Tiger Bay Club. He presented a check for $10,000 to Mayor Hayward and proceeded to unroll a charm campaign on this Gulf Coast community in North West Florida with a heavy military presence. Located in Northwest Florida are the famed Pensacola Naval Air Station, Navy Training and Information Dominance Commands, the Naval Flight Training Center at Whiting Field, the USAF Air Force Special Operation Command Headquarters at Hurlburt Field, Eglin and Tyndall Air bases. It is not uncommon to see personnel from the six Arab States, members of the Gulf Cooperation Council, undergoing training at these facilities. One of the Tiger Bay board members who attended the private dinner Thursday evening opined the Ambassador gave a “smooth performance.”
The Qatar Charm Campaign
Tiny Qatar across from Shiite Iran is endeavoring to explain the presence of the leaders from terror groups Hamas and Taliban ensconced in luxury in Doha. There are also allegations by the US Treasury that some Qatar individuals and charities may have funded these groups, as well as, the self declared Islamic State, formerly ISIS. A bit ironic, as Ambassador Al-Kuwari said ISIS is a threat to them that needs to be addressed through immediate military action.
On the diplomatic side, Qatar is one of two Gulf Arab States, the other being Oman, that have diplomatic relationships with America’s ally in the Middle East, Israel. He stressed their recognition of the State of Israel which has offices in Doha. He spoke about the role of Qatar trying to bring about peace between the Jewish State and the Palestinians, what he repeatedly deemed as the principal root cause of unrest and violence in the region. He spoke about the criticism from fellow Arab League members questioning why Qatar tolerates Israeli presence and Jewish visitors.
Ambassador Al Kuwari propounded the view that the Al Jazeera satellite TV network was founded as the “voice of the Arab Spring”, promoting democratic aspirations. He pointed out Qatar’s own aspirations to build democratic institutions noting a possible future elected parliament, given the two century rule by the Al-Thani family.
“Qatar doesn’t support Hamas”
He astounded some in the audience when he claimed that Qatar does not support Hamas. This despite the $1 billion pledge by Qatar made at a Cairo conference to underwrite one quarter of the $4 billion cost to rebuild Gaza after the third Hamas perpetrated war with Israel since 2008. In his Tiger Bay talk he referenced the 2,200 Gazans killed in IDF Operation Protective Edge, not mentioning that the majority were Hamas and Palestinian Islamic jihad operatives who had used civilians as human shields. Nor did he mention that the $400 millions pledged after the 2012 Gaza war may have been used to build the terror tunnels that enabled cross border attacks inside Israel during the recent summer war. As he put it, “better to have Khaled Meshaal, the leader in Qatar than across the Gulf in Iran”.
As to questions concerning permitting a Taliban office in Qatar, the Ambassador said that was to facilitate discussions with the Afghan government leading to an inclusive democratic government. He recommended the terror group relinquish its threats of violence and denial of empowerment of women through education. He noted the role played by Qatar in release of several Taliban leaders from detention in Guantanamo in exchange for release of captive US Army Sergeant Bergdahl. However he did not respond to questions as to whether any of the released Taliban commanders in Qatar were rumored to have subsequently joined ISIS.
When asked about the Muslim Brotherhood, he suggested that there could be democratically elected Islamist governments, decrying the imprisonment by Egyptian President el-Sisi of Brothers, liberals and human rights advocates by the newly elected government. The Ambassador suggested that the Muslim Brotherhood may not have resorted to terrorism, which appears contradicted by Egyptian, Saudi and UAE designations. He was, however, silent about the long term presence in Qatar of exiled Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood preacher, Yusuf al-Qaradawi founder of the Union of Good, a US Treasury Global Designated Terror Group supplying Hamas.
As Ambassador Al-Kuwari was finishing his presentation The Investigative Project was reporting:
Interpol issued a bulletin Friday seeking the arrest of the Muslim Brotherhood’s most influential cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi. The bulletin was sparse on details but said that Egypt wanted the 88-year-old Qaradawi “to serve a sentence” for crimes including “incitement and assistance to commit intentional murder.” … According to the Global Muslim Brotherhood Daily Watch, Interpol issued a “red notice” which is both its highest level alert, and a move subject to later review by the international police agency.
The Egyptian El-Sisi government had requested extradition by Qatar of al-Qaradawi to stand trial.
Ambassador Al-Kuwari painted a glowing picture of Qatar as the Switzerland of the Middle East with billions of dollars holding hundreds of international academic, business and interfaith conferences akin to Davos. He touted American universities like Cornell, Northwestern, Texas, and Virginia Commonwealth that set up programs in Doha. He said that Qatar wanted to invest in economic enterprises in the region to create jobs for the large number of unemployed university graduates. In the US Qatar is spending $5 million funding university courses to teach Arabic.
He emphasized the humanitarian contributions of Qatar reflected in the $100 million given for the rebuilding of New Orleans following hurricane Katrina, the $850 million to rebuild Haiti after the 2012 Earthquake in cooperation with the Clinton Foundation and a major push against Polio in the less developed world in conjunction with the Gates Foundation. But there were also investments in the US, like the $1.5 billion City Center complex developed with the Hines group in Texas revitalizing a derelict section of Washington, DC.
When asked about the depiction of Islam as being prone to violence reflected in the barbarism of ISIS, he deplored that. He contended that ISIS and Al Qaeda affiliates were a distinct minority that had infiltrated the demonstrated record of tolerance of Islam. His message was that Qatar was following the example of the 800 year Muslim reign in Al Andaluz, southern Spain, where allegedly Jews, Christian and Muslims lived in tolerance. This is not demonstrated by the history of intolerance and barbarism akin to that perpetrated by contemporary ISIS and the Taliban during the successive waves of invasion by extremist Berber-Muslims from North Africa. He noted Qatar’s approval for building a new Catholic church.
Is Qatar a Frenemy?
Seasoned observers of the Middle East Region say that Qatar under the two century rule by the Al-Thani family “has been punching internationally above its weight class” to use the boxing analogy. Yet Qatar has often been referred to as a Frenemy. Not exactly a friend, not exactly an enemy.
On the friend side Qatar has assisted in building several major bases including the forward command center at al-Udeid air base for the US Central Command, headquartered at MacDill Air Base just outside Tampa, Florida. Qatar has supplied air contingents in the US-led coalition of 60 countries seeking to “degrade and destroy” Sunni extremist group, the Islamic State, formerly ISIS. The capital, Doha has been turned into an international education hub for the Middle East with the aid of US academic institutions and think tanks like the Doha Center of the Washington, DC –based Brookings Institution. Qatar has created jobs here in the US by purchasing $19 billion of 50 Boeing 777s for expansion of its Qatar Airways in major hubs Dallas, Miami , Philadelphia to bolster existing facilities in Houston, Washington, DC, New York and Chicago . Further, Qatar has signed agreements with the Pentagon to purchase more than $11 billion in Patriot Missiles, Apache helicopters and Javelin anti-tank missiles. Moreover, it acquired the Current TV channel, now Al Jazeera America, from former Vice President Al Gore and investors.
On the other hand, there is a troubling story. Qatar in a New York Times op-ed by Israeli Ambassador to the UN Ron Prosor called Qatar a “Club Med for Terrorists”. He was referring to providing sanctuary for Khaled Meshaal, the billionaire leader of Hamas. Dr. Jonathan Schanzer of the Washington, DC-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies in testimony before the Joint Subcommittee on Foreign Affairs on September 9, 2014 said “that Qatar is currently Hamas’ ATM”:
“If you add up the annual $400 million that we believe has been pledged by the Qataris and perhaps the rumored $300 million provided by the Turks, then you’re looking at $700 million out of a roughly $1 billion budget,” Schanzer told members of Congress. “I’m no math major, but that would be 70 percent.
Earlier this year three Arab states of the Gulf Cooperation Council, Bahrain, the UAE and Saudi Arabia, briefly withdrew their Ambassadors from Qatar. They were, among other reasons, objecting to the Qatar funded Al Jazeera satellite TV network broadcasting across the region in Arabic the extremist inflammatory statements of exiled Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood preacher, Yusuf al Qaradawi. In November 2014, the UAE joined Saudi Arabia placing the Muslim Brotherhood on its list of world terrorist organizations, including Hamas and, here in the US, Muslim Brotherhood affiliates, the Council of American Islamic Relations and Muslim American Society.
There are questions about what Qatar is doing concerning wealthy Qataris who have funded Al Qaeda affiliate Jabhat al-Nusrah and the Sunni fundamentalist Islamic State in both Syria and Iraq.
There have been accusations that some of the $220 billion funds for the infrastructure in preparation for 2022 FIFA World Cup competition may have involved bribes to FIFA officials and possible diversion of contractor payments to fund the Jihad of the Islamic State.
Some Members of Congress have called for black listing both Qatar and Turkey because of these individuals’ contributions to ISIS, even suggesting that the U.S. move CENTCOMM bases in Qatar elsewhere in the region. Those accusations led the US State Department while calling the current relationship with Qatar “productive”, to also state that “disruption of terrorist financing by Qatari individuals and charitable associations remains inconsistent”.
Conclusion
Qatari Ambassador Al-Kuwari’s Pensacola presentation will doubtless be repeated frequently during his Washington, DC posting. After all the campaign is laced with prospects of American communities and businesses receiving billions in economic rewards. If Qatar is to succeed it might wisely follow the path of fellow Gulf Cooperation Council member Kuwait and rein in terrorist financiers in the tiny state. Qatar might start by honoring the Interpol Red Tag warrant for the arrest and extradition of Muslim Brotherhood preacher Al Qaradawi. As to fostering peace between Israel and the Palestinians, if Qatar’s track record negotiating cease fire proposals with Turkey on behalf of Hamas in the recent summer Gaza war is any indication, that is an unlikely prospect.
Listen to the Qatar Ambassador’s Pensacola Tiger Bay Club presentation.
